Understanding advertising in the era of social media

Abstract

The late 1990s saw the rise of social media, which changed how people consumed and disseminated information. Youth find social networking sites to be quite appealing and popular, and they frequently spend a lot of time using the platforms’ communication affordances. Since McLuhan contended in the 20th century that technologies aid in extending human capacity, media technologies have been seen as empowering and freeing. In the media and communication sectors, technologies have made it easier for humans to manipulate mechanical and electrical processes. This study employs secondary data in this context, having researched pertinent literature and papers and assessed them in the direction of the existing literature in order to probe the topic of inquiry. The majority of the information in the study comes from secondary sources, which provided concrete sources of insight into the analysis. These sources included pertinent texts, journals, government publications, historical documents, and the Internet. The technique was applied to assess other published works. The approach aids in verifying the validity of such results from earlier research. The paper’s analysis of the literature led to the conclusion that, despite its challenges, social media advertising can reach a wider audience than traditional media. Social media sites such as WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, and others allow advertisers to reach a large number of potential customers at a lower cost, 24/7. This study indicates that companies that prioritize improving their brand image will find ways to do it by having advertising explore the various online channels.